Work to begin on upgrading French Atlantique 2 MPA

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Thales and Dassault Aviation expect to begin work in the coming weeks on a long-planned upgrade to France’s Atlantique 2 (ATL 2) maritime patrol aircraft.

The versatile patroller is supporting combat missions in Mali, providing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and close-air support with Paveway II laser-guided bombs.

France modified a number of ATL 2 aircraft earlier this year to deliver GBU-12 bombs using target designators onboard French Harfang UAVs, on fighter aircraft and on the ground.

In April, the French Defense Ministry listed ATL 2 modernization as a top priority in the nation’s new defense and security strategy, ahead of a forthcoming multiyear spending plan expected to be issued this summer.

“As we see in Mali, it is a useful to have some multipurpose assets,” Laurent Collet-Billon, head of French procurement agency DGA, says of the ATL 2.
“It is like a Swiss [army] knife.”

The French navy maintains 22 ATL 2s, 18 of which are slated to get a complete overhaul, with new radar, antisubmarine systems, sonars, sonobuoys and optical systems.
Plans to upgrade the ATL 2 fleet have been in the works for more than four years but have been stalled due in part to a shortage of funding.
The goal of the upgrade, which Thales expects to be centered on its Amascos maritime mission system, is to extend service life past 2030.

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Dassault Aviation and Thales have been awarded a deal to modernise the mission systems of the French navy's 15 Dassault-built Atlantique 2 maritime patrol aircraft, extending the type's operational life into the 2030s.

Under the enhancement contract, awarded by France's DGA procurement body on 4 October, the turboprop-powered aircraft will receive a new tactical mission system and "state-of-the-art" sensor subsystems and display consoles, says Dassault.

Dassault is already engaged in a separate upgrade programme to boost the French navy's maritime surveillance capability through the conversion of four Falcon 50Bs formerly operated by the nation's governmental transport squadron.

The first of the reconfigured aircraft, now designated the Falcon 50MS, was received by the navy on 6 September.
The remaining three aircraft will be delivered by 2015, says the DGA.